


hellfire

by Sylvalum



Category: Code Geass
Genre: M/M, Pre-Zero Requiem, not really a Character Study but also not NOT one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:29:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28676721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylvalum/pseuds/Sylvalum
Summary: "You did agree to play the role of my ruthless knight, after all.” Lelouch studies Suzaku’s face. He’s not amused anymore, his mouth a flat line.“I did,” agrees Suzaku.or: Suzaku examines their relationship from various angles as they work to complete the Zero Requiem.
Relationships: Kururugi Suzaku/Lelouch Lamperouge | Lelouch vi Britannia
Comments: 22
Kudos: 65





	hellfire

They’ve got clearly defined schedules with places to be for every timestamp, or at least Lelouch has that much to do – and most days it’d be easier for Suzaku to avoid Lelouch completely than to bump into him. They’ve got meetings together, obviously, but as their second week in Pendragon dawns Suzaku finds that most of his schedule is empty. He has an appointment with Lloyd and Cecile in the morning, but after that there are three blank hours.

He runs combat simulations for the Lancelot Albion. Then he goes to the emperor’s study, carefully opening the door to peek inside at where Lelouch is seated at the desk and writing something on paper notes while CC muses out loud about – something. Suzaku listens for a few seconds in the doorway but can’t pick up the thread.

“Did you need something?” Lelouch asks, distractedly but not unkindly.

Suzaku steps inside the study. He doesn’t know exactly what to say without coming off as if he’s whining about having too much free time, oh woe is me. CC watches him in a way that makes Suzaku think of an owl. “What are you working on?” he asks back.

“This and that,” says Lelouch. “A budget.” He waves a hand. “Written orders.” He glances up at Suzaku, and Suzaku squashes the urge to flinch back at the sight of his eyes. They glow red like embers and the iris is warped around his pupil like its upper curve has been cut open, ends flaring out. They’re not human eyes.

Lelouch’s eyes had been lilac yesterday, but he’s got contacts, of course, and if he wears them that much then why wouldn’t he take them off as soon as he’s alone. Or nearly alone. Either way, Suzaku has seen the Geass in his eyes before and it’s not like it poses any threat to him since he’s already beneath Lelouch’s spell.

While Suzaku thinks through all of that and carefully doesn’t react, Lelouch watches his face.

Waiting.

“How interesting,” says Suzaku, maybe a touch too blandly. Lelouch’s eyes are relentlessly, cruelly, magnetically focused upon his face. “I suppose I can’t help you with anything?”

CC, always content to lounge around in a way Suzaku could never be without feeling useless and wasted and like there’s something vital he’s skipping out on doing, older than them wiser than them more apathetic than Suzaku could ever hope to be, at once able to draw all attention in a room and able to creep unnoticed through any crowd, says, “Why don’t we go outside, Kururugi.” A question worded like a suggestion and pronounced like a fact. Suzaku is still to this day grappling with whether he should be annoyed by her, wary of her, coolly and professionally indifferent towards her, or whether he should at least _try_ to see her out of Lelouch’s eyes (bloodstained and shining like a demon’s), attempt to find whatever it is he finds so endearing about her. She adds, “It’s such nice weather today.”

Lelouch is still looking at him, wearing the same non-expression as Suzaku. His schedule is full. He has paperwork. He has no need for Suzaku.

“Let’s,” says Suzaku, and holds the door of the study open for CC.

* * *

Suzaku doesn’t like lies.

So he reasons to himself that isn’t it _better_ if Lelouch doesn’t hide his eyes unless necessary? Isn’t it more truthful of him to show his true colours. Isn’t it better if Suzaku could never look him in the eyes and simultaneously forget about the power of Geass. Isn’t it better if no one ever lied? But masks exist for a reason other than lying, had Lelouch argued in that other world, and lies too serve a purpose, and Suzaku had said nothing to protest-

Fine: Suzaku claims not to like lies but as he sits by the lake with CC he considers whether his staunch disapproval of lies had just been borne out of killing his father and having every single adult around him lie to cover it up, or whether it's actually a cornerstone of his morals. Or whether those things are one and the same, actually.

After he killed his own father, he built a fortress out of morals, the bricks white and black and full of uncompromising justice. He had to be punished but he couldn’t be punished so he’d be a slave for the ideal of justice instead, a perfect archangel come to smite the sins of others. And after he killed millions of Tokyo settlement citizens that fortress crumbled to dust in an instant in the empty void that opened inside of him. There’s no way to atone for a thing like that. Nothing.

So, Suzaku muses as he stares into the water. Lelouch. Lelouch and his horrifying eyes.

They bother him, but that’s irrational and impolite to bring up. And what are they if not another secret to be entrusted with? Lelouch can’t show his eyes in public without planning it out in detail, but CC and Suzaku are safe from his power. Really, it all boils down to whether Suzaku despises Lelouch enough to deny him a comfort as simple as not wearing contact lenses at home.

Suzaku can ignore any irrational feelings of revulsion easily enough. And he won’t give Lelouch the chance to remark upon any expressions Suzaku may or may not make at his eyes, because Suzaku will never again so much as twitch at Lelouch’s naked attention.

* * *

CC takes her dinner with Lelouch every evening. Suzaku simply followed his schedule to the letter on his first week here, but now that things have settled down a bit and he doesn’t have as much to do he decides to seek them out again. Lelouch has scheduled for the old imperial mausoleum to be burnt tonight, which is something Suzaku strictly doesn’t _have_ to be present for, but his schedule gapes otherwise empty and it might be better if he’s seen reliably at the emperor’s side for the occasion. Lelouch definitely has more thoughts about that.

(Suzaku thinks he once upon a time might have had his own thoughts about the whole event, but now- no.)

The imperial palace has several dining rooms, Lelouch and CC occupying the emperor’s private one; it’s one of the smaller ones with a table that seats only a dozen people. There are huge arched windows draped with red silk that face the garden, and when Suzaku steps into the room the only people inside are Lelouch and CC. The servant carrying Suzaku’s dinner hurries inside after him and quickly starts to set it up on the table at the seat where Suzaku indicates he’ll sit, but then Lelouch says, “A long table doesn’t mean we _must_ sit seven metres away from each other, Suzaku.”

Lelouch sits at the end of the table, with CC to his left. When Suzaku takes the right Lelouch looks pleased. The servant quickly moves his tray and empties it there on the table before bowing and heading for the door. Lelouch looks at Suzaku’s glass of water, then gestures to the bottle standing next to his own glass. “Wine?”

“No thank you,” says Suzaku. CC has her usual meal and is eating it straight out of the box, while Lelouch has a plate of some traditional Britannian cuisine. Suzaku has pasta.

Lelouch has ominous red eyes and he’s not subtle when he glances at Suzaku.

“Is something the matter, Your Majesty?” asks Suzaku and looks Lelouch in the eyes. It’s not as startling as it had been earlier today. Suzaku’s resolved to never again have any reaction to Lelouch’s new eyes that he wouldn’t have had to his old ones, and he must be succeeding, because all Lelouch says is,

“You don’t usually eat with us, so I was wondering if perhaps _you_ wanted anything.”

Well. Suzaku _did_ want to know whether Lelouch wants him with him tonight or not, but strictly speaking Suzaku is his knight and should be there no matter what. They’d decided to present a united front, after all, making Suzaku out to be completely loyal to Lelouch and only Lelouch when he’d taken the throne and presented Suzaku as his knight. What must the world think of that. Suzaku deliberately spends no time dwelling on public opinion, but just yesterday he caught himself thinking about the Ashford Student Council. But there’s no point to that. He’ll never speak to them again, anyway. And whatever their reaction will be to Lelouch torching the imperial mausoleum Suzaku won’t know.

“I’ll be coming along to the mausoleum,” says Suzaku. “Right?”

“Yes, unless you have any objections. You did agree to play the role of my ruthless knight, after all.” Lelouch studies Suzaku’s face. He’s not amused anymore, his mouth a flat line.

And what will the public think about that. “I did,” agrees Suzaku. “Your devoted, bloodthirsty reaper.”

Lelouch doesn’t smile, but CC huffs a laugh and shakes her head.

What must CC think of them.

* * *

In public they never hesitate. Lelouch is always confident and smirking and Suzaku stands next to him or behind his shoulder and when Lelouch gives him an order he says, “Yes, Your Majesty” and doesn’t wait even a second to execute his order. He kills all the Knights of the Round and Lancelot spreads its wings above the battlefield littered with their remains while cameras capture it all, and Lelouch proclaims his claim to the throne, now uncontested. He smirks, of course. Suzaku has nothing to say, of course.

In the palace Suzaku wonders whether he shouldn’t have spared Gino after all, but the longer he picks at the question the worse he feels. Maybe he shouldn’t have come with Lelouch to Pendragon, maybe he shouldn’t have gone to Kamine island, maybe he shouldn’t have dragged Lelouch in front of his father, maybe he shouldn’t have joined the Britannian army. Maybe he shouldn’t have killed his father. What-ifs are a waste of time, he reminds himself. And how the hell did he come to the point where he’s almost talking himself into regretting _sparing_ someone’s life? If Gino comes back again they’ll deal with him then, but for now Suzaku shouldn’t regret giving him a chance. There are so many things wrong with Suzaku, but his occasional capability of mercy is not one of them.

He goes to find Lelouch, in his study once again. CC is absent today.

“Suzaku,” says Lelouch when he steps inside, closing the door behind him. Lelouch’s burning demon’s eyes fix on his. “Good work today.”

“Thank you,” says Suzaku. “Your Majesty.”

Another thing he contemplates: terms of address. Suzaku was taught to be polite, of course, and in the military he’d learnt to never ever be disrespectful to nobility, much less royalty. But Lelouch is Lelouch. Even though Lelouch is emperor now, and in public Suzaku bows his head and always refers to his lord with nothing but respect, he’s still an idiot who Suzaku has seen trip over his own feet more than once. When no one is listening Lelouch certainly wouldn’t care what Suzaku called him. But Suzaku calls him his majesty anyway – and half the time Lelouch doesn’t even notice. The other times, when he does notice it, there comes a little pause after Suzaku’s said it, and Lelouch glances at him and tries to read his expression just as Suzaku does to Lelouch, but neither of them succeeds.

The best reason Suzaku can come up with for the _why_ , is that it’s less familiar than Lelouch. And that it adds that little pause into their conversation, clearly marking their positions and reminding them of exactly where they are and exactly what they will have to do. Suzaku is Lelouch’s knight and Lelouch is Suzaku’s emperor – Suzaku doesn’t have to try to come to terms with what they are to each other at the end of everything they’ve done to each other, or where he wants them to be, or where he presumes Lelouch would want them to be, if Suzaku simply lets their roles be all of that. Lets their relationship be only emperor and knight.

Another paradox: they _are_ simply playing roles, even if none of the world knows the difference.

It’s cheating of Suzaku to turn away and say all Lelouch is to him is his emperor. But Suzaku’s intricate walls of morals have all collapsed and the role he must grimly play is judge jury and executioner of the emperor, so really, Suzaku thinks he can repress his feelings all he wants.

Lelouch looks away at his stacks of paper. “You’re welcome,” he says, softly.

Suzaku will never mention Lelouch’s awful eyes, and Lelouch will never question why Suzaku prefers to call him his majesty. Suzaku will never complain about having to play the role they’d chosen for him, and Lelouch will never apologise for letting Suzaku join him. If Suzaku never says anything, then neither will Lelouch.

They’ve been in Pendragon all of two weeks; it’s amazing how much paperwork Lelouch already has accumulated. Maybe it’s on purpose. “Is there anything I could assist you with?” asks Suzaku. He doesn’t expect there to be anything but since he destroyed the Knights of the Round there’s nothing else on his schedule today, either way.

“I suppose you could look over some of this,” allows Lelouch. “It’s mostly UFN paperwork, since we’ll be joining them soon.”

Suzaku pulls up a chair, and takes the papers when Lelouch gives them, and neither of them speak a word of anything but UFN business.

* * *

Lies are told for many reasons, to many ends, and though Suzaku doesn’t condemn the practice of lying he always hated when _Lelouch_ lied. He knows when Lelouch lies. He knew it back at Ashford too, at the Kururugi shrine, and still he hated it. Nowadays Lelouch doesn’t lie – he simply turns away or doesn’t answer or sits in silence, and Suzaku has found he hates that too. He hates Lelouch’s cool expression and melancholy little smile and how Lelouch only seems to think about _planning_ and not about what’s actually going to happen when the plan’s over, working steadily towards his own death. Does he think about that at all? Does he?

Since Suzaku saw his own gravestone his thoughts keep circling back to it. He has no schedule anymore, being dead, but he stays in the Britannian noble villa on the Tokyo outskirts that Lelouch took over after the Mt. Fuji battle, where the Geassed servants and guards neither seem to hear nor see him. He occupies the same role as CC: nothing and no one at all except to Lelouch.

The day after his own funeral he sits on the balcony and stares in the direction of the city. It hasn’t been even nearly long enough for them to start rebuilding anything. The thoughts swirl horribly around in his head, but if Suzaku thinks about the crater he only feels numb, and cold, and a little sick. It’s a feeling which thoroughly obliterates any other feelings he may or may not be having. It makes him empty. Death has never felt as present as it does here, in the sweltering sunshine with only the sound of the insects and the memory of walking through fields of corpses on a summer just like this, eight years ago.

CC finds him, eventually. She sits down on the other side of the little blue metal table stood on the balcony, and puts her head in her hand, and looks at him. “You look tired,” she says. “Your little scheme’s nearing its end. Shouldn’t you be doing something?”

“No,” says Suzaku. “This part’s all Lelouch. Until-“

It hits him again, even though it’s so selfish of him to feel this way, surely, about a boy who’s killed so many. That bottomless horror when he again and again realises he’ll have to kill Lelouch, and that that moment only comes closer and closer, and that nothing they’ve done will ever have mattered at all if Suzaku can’t kill Lelouch.

“Until you know what,” Suzaku finishes. The heat’s making him tired.

CC looks at him. “You’re so young,” she says. If Suzaku thought she had room for that feeling in her heart, he’d say she sounds pitying when she says it.

“Yes,” says Suzaku. Yes, yes, don’t you think I have heard that before? Other eighteen-year-olds go to high school and get drunk with their friends and maybe fall in love; and some other eighteen-year-olds are suffering and dying in war and poverty right now. And some other _other_ eighteen-year-olds are already dead because of Suzaku and Lelouch. You’re so young – and Suzaku’s a murderer, too. To be a normal teenager was never something Suzaku could have aspired to be, much less Lelouch. Not after what they’d already seen and done at age ten. They are murderers and they hold the world in their hands. You’re so young – yes, maybe, but when has that ever, ever mattered?

Suzaku says, “And you’re so old. I guess you wouldn’t tell me if I asked how many years.”

“You guess right, Kururugi.” CC smiles at him, slow and languid like a predator cat. He just can’t get a grip on her personality. He doesn’t understand or relate to her in the least, except for the moments when the both of them look into the distance with no facial expression. Empty eyes. That he understands.

* * *

Suzaku and CC must be invisible, and Lelouch must appear in public to look obscenely delighted as the world folds beneath him. He must be louder and bolder than ever, his purple eyes cold and hard even as he laughs, smirks and swans around. He humiliates people and destroys things on a whim, gets ‘bored’ and walks right out of a UFN meeting while forcing the delegates to sit there for hours – the new delegates _he_ picked out, as all the real representatives are in prison with Nunnally. He’s endlessly amused, and when he retreats back into the villa and every watching eye is gone his face goes hollow.

“Is there anything you want?” Lelouch asks flatly when he steps into his chambers and sees Suzaku already there. His room in the villa is smaller than the one he’d had in the palace; there’s a four-poster bed and a loveseat and a desk. Suzaku sits in the desk chair but stands when Lelouch steps inside.

“I haven’t seen you in days,” says Suzaku. To avoid talking about certain subjects isn’t lying, or even morally reprehensible, but if Suzaku doesn’t take the chance to talk with Lelouch soon he’ll never again get it. And after thinking about it he’s become pretty certain that’d be worse. He and CC are the only ones to ever witness this Lelouch, the only ones who’ll be able to remember him as he truly was. And Suzaku will kill him, but he wants to carry as much of Lelouch as he can with him in his memory. What’s one more burden for him, anyway? He wants to do this. And for that end he wants to see as much of the true Lelouch as Lelouch will show him.

“Is that a bad thing?” says Lelouch. He studies Suzaku with purple eyes.

“Let me see your eyes,” says Suzaku, suddenly.

“These _are_ my eyes,” says Lelouch, but reaches up and removes the contact lenses anyway. He steps past Suzaku to put them in a box on his desk, then turns around to face him again. His face looks tired, but his eyes burn as hotly as ever. “Better?” he asks dryly.

“Yes,” says Suzaku.

They stand there and look at each other.

“The Zero Requiem will soon be finished,” says Lelouch, unbidden. He sits down heavily on the bed. “Was that what you wanted to ask about?”

“I know,” says Suzaku. “I was wondering how you feel about that.”

Among other things.

“It must be done, Suzaku,” he says. “The thought of not being able to know what it will result in makes me uneasy, but I trust you to do all you can for the world after I’m gone.” He smiles and says, “I’m sorry to put such a heavy burden on you.”

“You’re not.”

“I’m not.” Lelouch sighs. “Why are you even here? I’d like to go to sleep.”

When Suzaku feels only numb he never knows what words to describe that feeling with. How to explain what he’s actually thinking beyond that sheet of blankness. Lelouch keeps on working towards his death because he can’t not – but he must feel _something_ about his impending death, Suzaku knows it. And maybe he doesn’t have the words to explain it. He’s a silver-tongued diplomat – but he also looks so tired, and lonely, where he sits on the bed.

Suzaku takes a step forward and sits down next to him. Lelouch tilts towards him as the bed dips, and Suzaku leans against him before Lelouch can pull away. And it takes a moment, but eventually Lelouch settles against him.

Suzaku expects him to say something, but moments pass and there’s nothing.

“What am I to you?” Suzaku asks.

Lelouch exhales heavily. “My knight. My accomplice. My oldest friend, if you’ll have me.”

“Of course I will.”

“Well then,” says Lelouch. He’s silent for a moment but Suzaku only waits, so Lelouch continues. “I wanted you on my side since the beginning.” A confession. “Always. Whatever you’d give me I’d be happy to have.”

“You know I’d give you anything, Your Majesty.” Suzaku looks at him. “Lelouch. My heart’s been yours for years.” Suzaku admits, very carefully, “It’s… part of the reason I fought against you so viciously.” His feelings centred around Lelouch, Lelouch who killed Euphie and who brought war back to Japan and who betrayed him and lied to him and Suzaku could not think of anything but Lelouch, obsessing over his flaws and his crimes and picking him apart like that would finally make Suzaku’s stupid heart see reason. Lelouch, star of Suzaku’s heart: how could he commit those atrocities? How _dared_ he? And then there was the fact that Lelouch had put a Geass in his mind, the order flaring up every other day and pouring fresh gasoline on the flames, Lelouch’s voice haunting him.

Suzaku hasn’t forgiven him, just like Suzaku will never forgive himself – but he has to live with it. He has to live.

“Yes,” agrees Lelouch. “And I could never kill you. Thankfully.”

Right. What a gift it is, that right now, despite everything that’s led them here and everything that’ll happen in the future, Suzaku can sit here and put an arm around Lelouch and get only a soft sigh against his shoulder in response.

Time is running out and he, too, wants everything Lelouch will give him.

It was never possible for them to be anything like normal teenagers, destiny having a chokehold on them since that summer they met. But all they do anymore is pretend, they’re so very good at it, so Suzaku leans back and takes his emperor’s face in his hands, looks the love of his life in his burning eyes, and kisses him.

**Author's Note:**

> when i first started watching cg i thought lelouch would be my favourite character. but i thought wrong! no thoughts kururugi suzaku only


End file.
